Por Adán Pérez-García (Grupo de Biología Evolutiva UNED).
Turtles are a peculiar group of vertebrates, which are part of the current biodiversity.They are recognized in the fossil record since the Upper Triassic, more than 200 million years ago. The development of its peculiar body plan, with an osseous shell and a skull with an anapsid configuration, has greatly facilitated its potential for the fossilization. In addition, its discovery occurs in deposits corresponding to numerous sedimentary environments due to its adaptation to different lifestyles, with terrestrial forms, freshwater turtles, and inhabitants of marine habitats. Some of the main finds of turtles in the Iberian paleontological record will be presented here, as well as the main temporal and paleobiogeographic implications resulting from their study. This record is composed of exclusively European lineages, but also by others that diachronically reached this continent, from Africa, Asia, and North America. The analysis of the abundant and diverse record of Iberian turtles, from the Upper Jurassic to the present, provides relevant data on the evolutionary history of this peculiar and successful group of reptiles.
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